Understanding Human Ambivalence About
Sex:
The Effects of Stripping Sex of Meaning
continued from
An ANOVA on the negative affect scale of the PANAS revealed a main effect
for neuroticism, F (1, 108) = 7.30, p = .008. High neuroticism participants
(M = 1.77, SD = .65) reported more negative affect than low neuroticism
participants (M = 1.47, SD = .73). The analysis also revealed an interaction
between creatureliness and sex primes, F (1, 108) = 5.15, p = .025. Tests
for simple main effects revealed that when participants in the humans are
animals condition responded to the romantic sex prime they revealed greater
negative affect than both participants primed with physical sex, F (1, 108)
= 4.18, p = .043, and those primed with romantic sex after reading the
humans are unique essay, F (1, 108) = 8.19, p = .005 (see
Table 2). This
pattern of means contrasts with the death access findings in which physical
sex resulted in greater death access than did romantic sex after the creatureliness prime, suggesting that death access is indeed distinct from
more general negative affect. Of course, because the findings for negative
affect were unanticipated, they should be interpreted with caution.
To directly test the possibility that negative affect was mediating the
effects of worldview threat and sex condition on death accessibility, an
ANCOVA was conducted on death access scores with negative affect as
covariate. This analysis revealed that including negative affect as
covariate did not alter the creatureliness X sex prime interaction, F (1,
107) = 6.72, p = .011. We also tested for mediation using the multiple
regression technique as outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986). The results
revealed no evidence of mediation or partial mediation by negative affect.
Discussion
The results of Study 1 provided initial support for the role of concerns
about creatureliness in the relationship between thoughts of physical sex
and thoughts of death. Regardless of level of neuroticism, after being
reminded of their links to other animals (i.e., their creatureliness),
participants led to think of physical sex exhibited elevated death-thought
accessibility. Conversely, after being reminded of how different they were
from other animals, participants thinking about physical sex did not reveal
heightened accessibility of death-related thought.
While the finding that people high in neuroticism were higher in negative
affect is consistent with our previous findings (Goldenberg et al., 1999),
it is not clear why the creatureliness prime in conjunction with romantic
love resulted in heightened negative effect. Perhaps the juxtaposition of
the two ideas produced a state of uncomfortable dissonance (cf. Festinger,
1957). However, these findings, along with the mediational analysis, provide
discriminate validity of the death-accessibility results. That is, after
being primed with creaturely thoughts, physical sex resulted in increased
death accessibility, independent of any general negative affective response.
Although we might have predicted a 3-way interaction with high neurotics
exhibiting the most death accessibility in response to physical sex after
the creaturely prime, and we did in fact test for such an outcome, the
analyses revealed that neuroticism did not moderate our results. We view
these findings as theoretically consistent with our intended manipulation,
and with our proposition that general ambivalence towards sex can be
explained by a threat associated with our physical nature, and that often,
individuals high in neuroticism are apt to be particularly threatened by
this association. Therefore, in the present study, we hypothesized that
priming thoughts of humans' similarities to other animals would likely cause
people to respond with an especially salient association between death and
sex. Perhaps more surprising, the condition in which people were primed with
the idea that they were distinct from animals appeared to serve as an
antidote for this threat, even among people high in neuroticism. Although
neuroticism was not our primary focus in this paper, the fact that neurotics
in this condition were not threatened by thoughts about death tentatively
suggests that reminders of the specialness of humans may have some
particular therapeutic value for neurotic individuals.
Further support for the role of creatureliness in human ambivalence about
sex would be obtained if, in addition to affecting the accessibility of
death-related thought, these reminders of creatureliness or uniqueness also
moderated the effects of MS on the appeal of physical sex. Recall that
previous research has shown that individuals high but not low in neuroticism
responded to MS by viewing the physical aspects of sex as less appealing. If
the results for the high neurotics resulted from their inability to view sex
as a meaningful rather than a creaturely activity, then reminding people of
their creaturely nature should lead them to find the physical aspects of sex
less appealing, independent of their level of neuroticism.
STUDY 2
A theory designed to explain why people are ambivalent about sex should
be able to specify factors that affect people's attitudes toward sex. In
Study 2 we therefore hypothesized that a creatureliness reminder should lead
mortality-salient participants to find physical sex less appealing. In
contrast, the uniqueness reminder should mitigate an effect of MS on the
appeal of physical aspects of sex. To test these hypotheses, prior to being
reminded of their own death or another aversive topic, individuals were
again randomly assigned to read an essay that discussed either the relative
similarity or dissimilarity between humans and the rest of the animal
kingdom. The appeal of the physical and romantic aspects of sex was then
measured. Once again, we assessed whether neuroticism moderated the effects,
but based on the findings of Study 1 and our intentions to manipulate
factors that play a role in sexual ambivalence among the general population,
we hypothesized that our manipulations would have these predicted effects
regardless of level of neuroticism.
Method
Participants
Participants were 129 university students, 74 females and 52 males (3
students declined to report gender) enrolled in two introductory psychology
classes, who participated voluntarily for course credit. Ages ranged from 16
to 54 years old, M = 20.09, SD = 5.63.
Materials and Procedure
The procedure was the same as in Study 1. The content and order of the
questionnaires are described below.
Neuroticism. To categorize participants as high or low in neuroticism,
they were given the neuroticism measure (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1967) embedded
in the same filler items as in Study 1.
Creatureliness prime. Participants read the same essay used in Study 1
describing humans as either similar to or distinct from animals.
Mortality salience. As in previous studies (e.g., Greenberg et al.,
1990), MS was manipulated with two open-ended questions that reminded
participants of either their death or another aversive topic. Both
questionnaires were described as an "innovative personality assessment" and
consisted of two items with space provided below each for freely written
response. The death questionnaire contained the items "Please briefly
describe the emotions that the thought of your own death arouses in you" and
"What do you think happens to you as you physically die and once you are
physically dead?" The control questionnaire asked parallel questions about
failing an important exam.
Negative affect. As in Study 1, the PANAS (Watson et al., 1988) was
administered to address the alternative explanation that negative affect
mediates the effects of our manipulations on the primary dependent measure.
Word search delay. A word search puzzle was included to provide a delay
and distraction because previous research has shown that MS effects occur
when death-related thoughts are highly accessible but not in current focal
attention (e.g., Greenberg et al., 1994). Participants were asked to search
for 12 neutral words embedded in a matrix of letters. Approximately 3
minutes were needed to complete the word search.
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